Introduction : the past in British cinema / Claire Monk and Amy Sargeant -- Do we need another hero? : Ecce homo and Nelson (1919) / Amy Sargeant -- Death or glory? : the Great War in British film / Alan Burton -- Secrets and lies : black histories and British historical films / Stephen Bourne -- "If the world does not please you, you can change it" : The history of Mr Polly (1949) and The card (1952) / Tim O'Sullivan -- Cinema, monarchy and the making of heritage : A queen is crowned (1953) / James Chapman -- Camping on the borders : history, identity, and Britishness in the Carry on costume parodies, 1963-74 / Nicholas J. Cull -- Monkey feathers : defending Zulu (1964) / Sheldon Hall -- Ireland, the past, and British cinema : Ryan's daughter (1970) / Fidelma Farley -- Imperial migrations : reading the Raj cinema of the 1980s / T. Muraleedharan -- Kenneth Branagh's Henry V (1989) : genre and interpretation / James Quinn and Jane Kingsley-Smith -- The British heritage-film debate revisited / Claire Monk -- The content and the form : invoking "pastness" in three recent retro films / Amy Sargeant -- Taking liberties with the monarch : the royal bio-pic in the 1990s / Kara McKechnie